This is a comment that I left on Whit's blog way back in 2006. It is one of the few comments that I have ever written that made me cry while writing it. I asked him at that time if I could copy and paste it to my blog and he said yes. Since then I reposted it once. This is the second repost here.

It had meaning for me then....it still has meaning for me now. As things stand at the moment it would appear that my family is no longer speaking to me or wants to have anything to do with me. I didn't say that they weren't tracking my every movement on the blogstream/questionstream...I just said that they refuse to directly talk to me, or correspond with me. My mother and one of my sisters have told me that I am "no longer welcome in their homes" because of the choices I have made. None of my nine children are speaking to me even though the two oldest ones were given an opportunity when I called them several times. They have not spoken to me at all since all of this occurred even though one continues to log in under different names on the questionstream whenever she sees that I am on there. Once I was told by my son-in-law that "no one is talking to you at this time" (very Christian of him, don't you think?) and the other times I left messages that were unreturned. Well, alrighty then........

As for my husband, you have all heard the story either directly from me or through the blogstream gossi.....er, prayer chain. The Reader's Digest version is that he left me, WITH NO VEHICLE, at one of our homes on the lake 10 miles from the town to the north, 15 miles from the town to the west and 30 from the town to the south. Don't ask about the town to the east...that is directly across 4 miles of the deepest lake water in the United States. You DO know what a swimmer POH is, right? Well, May is just a TEENSY bit early for THAT kinna swimming, if you know what I mean. *wink* Along with no vehicle, he shut off my cell phone, which was the only way I had of contacting him or anyone else for that matter, the verizon internet card, the credit card, the debit card, and is still, to this day, giving me no access to money of any kind. Just think! Little POH had to get temporary FOOD STAMPS to suffice for the month of May. What a comeuppance, huh? But wait! How was I able to get to Social Services with no vehicle, hmmmmm?

Let's just leave it that God LOVE POH, baby, and NO ONE, not my mother, not my sisters, not even my supposedly CHRISTIAN family can convince me otherwise. Jesus Christ is not only ALL of my salvation.....He is the true and ONLY Lover of my soul. I always knew that and told people on the blogstream that before. Maybe...just maybe...they believe me now. People keep asking me WHY would I want to leave such a "wonderful" and "kind" man after all of these years of marriage. Maybe they would like to assess what has happened to me since I left, realizing that the ferocity of his vindictiveness was not a surprise to me, even after I offered him everything we owned ($1,000,000 in real estate) if he would just supply me with $1,000 a month for the rest of my life. $12,000 a year....poverty level finances for those of you who weren't sure. Apparently that deal wasn't good enough for him. He wanted to see me STARVE. If that doesn't convince you of the caliber of man I was living with, and why Denis did not, could not, and never will be considered "abusive" by me, then you are being stubbornly obstinate in the reading of the facts of this matter.

Anyway, thank you again Whit for giving me the opportunity to write this piece, something I would never have done if you had not posted the poem back in 2006. Here it is with your original comment and my original response. Thank you too, Whitmeister, for being such a good friend the past two years.

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa--aa--aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

My take of the words mean:

We have lost all sense of the future, and all integrity in ourselves. We have seen so much that we have lost the innocence of our First Love and can't find it any more. We can't tell the truth from a lie anymore. Our youth was filled with the hell and pain of war and we feel the shame of what we've been through and fail to feel the pride in what we've accomplished that others feel for us. We feel disqualified from this thing called life and our disinheritance surrounds us until we pass to the other side.

They sound like dead men walking, Whit. They have lost their innocence, their faith, the truth that they once knew. Their torments have caused them to see the world and others from the other side and they will never be the same. They followed the herd, baa, baa, baa, into the horrors of war and now they have lost who they are, the boys that they used to be, what they once stood for......

Don't we all lose our innocence sometime, Whit? Don't we all lose our faith, our hope, our love for God and our fellow man SOMETIME? Who has not felt those emotions so unique to the human experience? My wars have been different....I have not held a gun....not ever in my whole life....yet I have been to war and I defy anyone to minimize it or say that I haven't. I know what it means to lose my hope and to lose my honor, in my own eyes and in the eyes of my fellows. I know what it means to question my own integrity and to think that I MUST be the wrong one and everyone else MUST be right. I know what it is like to hug my pillow at night and pray to die.

I know what it is like to follow the herd, baa, baa, baa, and the price that is exacted from that. I know what it means to leave the herd and have to follow another road. A harsh, rocky, lonely, narrow road. I know what it means to lose the innocence of my youth and know that nothing....nothing....will ever gain it back....that I will never trust people, any people, even the people closest to me, the same way again.

I know first hand the curse of Reuban and know that my earthly inheritance is not worthy to be compared to what awaits me in heaven. If they deny me, I deny them. My hope is not 'false hope' and I do not hang onto it because I have nothing else to hang onto....I hang onto it because I have 'tasted and seen that the Lord is good' and no one in this world, not even my dearest and best can take from me what I have experienced.

I am a prisoner of the hope the Lord has put so far down inside of me that it can never be pulled out no matter how hard someone.....or circumstances try. When my hope fled from me, He caused me to hope against hope, and a greater hope was born. A hope that is not dependent on anyone but Him. He is all my hope, all my honour, all my innocence, all my youth and all my truth. In my darkest moments, in those times when I thought I would die from the grief, I found something so much greater than my own integrity to hope in.

Ps. 18 says, "He made darkness His secret place". For a while He was so bright and I didn't have to look hard to find evidence of His love for me. Then it's like someone walked in the room and flipped the switch. When the light went out all I could think of was "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" (1John) and it condemned me. Yet His Word says that when our hearts condemn us He is greater than our hearts. Then I saw the Psalm and God drew me into that secret place, and it was dark....and I so HATE the dark....and it changed me, Whit. Forever. I am changed and even if I wanted to I can't go back. It would be like slapping Him in the face for all the times He has secretly met me in my need.

I am called rebellious and unsubmissive to authority....but I was such a good girl, wasn't I? It was only when I realized that nothing I could ever do for these people would please them, that I became truly free to please God alone.

Well, this is the first post on any blog in the whole time I've been here, that has taken me more than a minute or two to comment on. I had to process this one for a while and then I had to get past the tears. The nostalgic Whiffenpoof song was an easier take....but I knew this meant more to me than that.
by prisonerofhope (PM , CC ) on Thursday March 16, 2006 @ 10:05 PM

prisoner:At last we know how you acquired your blog name--prisoner of hope. I am not certain I like the use of the word "prisoner" within this context. I think of a prisoner as someone who is incarcerated against his or her will. And you have voluntarily entered into this relationship and are free to disengage anytime you wish. But meanwhile, the hope that you have goes deep into your own soul.I am pleased that you found a force which has allowed you to surmount all the turmoil in your life. And you are right. Sometimes, the battles we must fight within ourselves are just as real and traumatic as any battle by a soldier on a battlefield.Good luck to you as pursue your destiny.
by Whit's Whittlings (PM , CC ) on Thursday March 16, 2006 @ 11:04 PM

The blog name is really not original with me. There is a book, written by a Holocaust survivor, by that name. I understand what you mean about the 'against your will' aspect of the word but I don't see it that way, anymore than I see anything wrong with the scripture that calls us 'slaves to righteousness'. You speak of destiny, and I believe that, but right now, Whit, I can't see more than a day ahead of me. I know that I have hopes and dreams for the here and now, not just for the hereafter....but, well, we'll see...I'm not the type to barge my way in somewhere I'm not wanted. Anyway, I liked this post, even if it was hard.
by prisonerofhope (PM , CC ) on Thursday March 16, 2006


PS. ANYONE ON THE BLOGSTREAM OR QUESTIONSTREAM WHO INSISTS ON PM'ING OR OTHERWISE COMMUNICATING WITH MY FAMILY DURING THIS LITIGIOUS TIME CAN AND WILL BE SUBJECT TO SUBPOENA. BE AWARE THAT YOUR PM'S ARE IN PIONEER'S FILES AND ALL I HAVE TO DO IS GET THE JUDGE TO FORCE THEM INTO COURT RECORDS. I WILL DO THIS, EVEN IF YOUR PM'S DATE BACK FROM BEFORE THIS WARNING. PEOPLE I HAVE CONSIDERED FRIENDS ON THIS STREAM HAVE NOT ONLY TURNED THEIR BACKS ON ME, BUT HAVE, LIKE NOSY BUSYBODIES, ENTWINED THEMSELVES WITH PEOPLE WHO ACTIVELY TRIED TO STARVE ME. FOR THEM I SAY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE MESSING WITH.

ON THE OTHER HAND OTHERS HAVE COME THROUGH FOR ME IN WAYS I CANNOT THANK THEM ENOUGH FOR, AND I REALIZE THAT I HAVE FRIENDS FOR LIFE IN YOU.